Hosni Mubarak goes on trial

Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak goes on trial on Wednesday on charges that he ordered the killing of protesters in February's uprising against his regime.

Mubarak could face the death penalty if he is found guilty of ordering the use of lethal force against the demonstrators.

The former president's security chief and six top police officers are also on trial.

Almost 850 people were killed in the 18-day mass protests.

Law professor at Ain Shams university in Cairo, Dr. Ramadan Batikh, said it was unheard of for a former Arab president to be tried.

Egypt reshuffles cabinet in effort to quell protests

Egypt’s finance and foreign ministers resigned over the weekend ahead of a sweeping cabinet reshuffle the government is carrying out in an effort to appease an increasingly restless public.

The expected exit of more than half of the country’s ministers comes amid complaints thatEgypt’s interim military rulers have been slow to enact meaningful reforms. Activists charge that the generals have failed to truly dismantle the power structure that remained largely intact when former president Hosni Mubarak was ousted in February.

“We all share a sense that a large number of the cabinet members are not supportive of the revolution,” said prominent activist Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. He cited the prohibition of labor strikes, the government’s failure to reform its infamous police forces and the anemic state of the welfare system.

Egyptian media outlets have reported that as many as 15 cabinet members could be replaced by Monday.

The reshuffle is likely to leave many here unsatisfied, however, because the justice and interior ministers, among the most divisive figures in the government, are expected to survive the purge, according to the state-run Middle East News Service.

As protests have intensified in recent weeks, activists have been calling for the dismissal of both ministers, citing the sluggish pace of the prosecutions of Mubarak and other regime officials. The Interior Ministry remains a lightening rod because activists say it has done a poor job of holding abusive police officials responsible.

Protesters have increasingly lashed out against the military leaders who just months ago were hailed as heroes for siding with the revolutionaries. On Saturday, a general who went to Tahrir Square to meet with demonstrators left amid boos and jeers.

Outgoing Finance Minister Samir Radwan told Reuters news agency that policymaking had become erratic in the months that followed the sudden fall of Mubarak.

He recently negotiated a $3 billion loan deal with the International Monetary Fund that would have eased some of the cash-strapped government’s most pressing needs. Last month, though, the military council scrapped the deal, saying the country could do without foreign aid.

“People don’t know what they want,” Radwan was quoted as having told Reuters. “Do they want increased expenditure and no borrowing from abroad? Everybody has suddenly become an expert on financial policy. That is not an atmosphere conducive to efficient work.”

Prime Minister Essam Sharaf on Sunday appointed Hazem el-Beblawi to serve as deputy prime minister for economic affairs and finance minister. Sharaf appointed a second deputy prime minister, Ali al-Selmy, to oversee political development and democratic transition. Selmy will be tasked with building democratic institutions as Egypt gears up for parliamentary elections scheduled to take place in the fall.

The appointments follow the resignation of Deputy Prime Minister Yehia El-Gammal, who stepped down last week. Foreign Minister Mohammed al-Orabi, a veteran diplomat in the Mubarak regime, resigned Saturday, after less than a month in office.

Egypt experts said it was difficult to assess whether the changes would placate protesters. Although Sharaf is the nominal civilian head of the country, the generals who assumed power after Mubarak’s ouster currently wield near absolute power.

“It is not clear how much power cabinet ministers have in the current situation or whether their replacement will help satisfy protesters’ specific demands,” Elijah Zarwan, a Cairo-based expert at the International Crisis Group said.

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Not Satisfied, Protesters Return to Tahrir Square

Past a battered Fiat displaying T-shirts on its hood with the words “I am free,” and a little way from a vendor hawking roasted sweet potatoes wrapped in membership applications for the former ruling party, a sign hangs from a tent in Tahrir Square that says something about the pride, regret and hope of Egypt’s revolution.

“Our mistake,” it declares, “is that we left the square.”

Eighteen days of protests here reacheda climax on Feb. 11, a moment celebrated across the Arab world, when the crumbling government of President Hosni Mubarak finally gave way. Now, in a summer of discontent, thousands of protesters have returned to the square, and after midnight on Tuesday, as on many recent nights, they offered a rebuttal to the idea that a revolution is a moment.

Egypt is a turbulent place these days, as is the Arab world it once led. Defiant, festive and messy scenes unfold at night in a square that is at once a place and an idea. Revolutions are about expectations, and everywhere in Egypt, it seems, expectations — about who should rule, how they should rule and who should decide the way they rule — have not been met.

“Sit-in! Sit-in!” young men shouted. “A sit-in until the regime is put on trial.”

“We have a feeling the regime is still there, somehow,” said Tarek Geddawy, 25, a musician, who returned to the square on Friday and has stayed since then. “They sacrificed the icons of the regime, but the cornerstone is still there.”

From a cluster of tents, a song by an Egyptian icon of another age, Abdel-Halim Hafez, played from a loudspeaker, seeming to echo Mr. Geddawy’s words.

“If the world falls asleep, I will keep my guard up,” the song goes. “My weapon in my hand, day and night awake, telling revolutionaries that our enemy can’t be trusted.”

Even in its reincarnation, Tahrir Square has kept the ebullience of months past. Artists like Nour Ramadan painted Egyptian flags on tired faces, charging a dollar or so. Musicians like Cairokee took the stage, giving way at 1 a.m. to impromptu poetry, oud recitals, children’s a cappella songs and Arabic rap that denounced American and Israeli policies in the same riff with calls for speedier trials of Mr. Mubarak and his men.

But a unity of purpose has given way to a multiplicity of demands, mirroring the divides that trouble Egypt’s political life these days. Debates rage over the timing of elections, the power of Islamists, the weakness of civilian rulers and the lack of accountability of their military counterparts, who suggested on Tuesday, in a seeming concession to protesters, that they would help protect civil liberties in the drafting of a new constitution.

The iconic slogan — “People want to topple the regime” — has given rise to endless corollaries, even among the largely secular crowd here. In any gaggle of youths, “the regime” was replaced with Prime Minister Essam Sharaf; the military council; and the corruption that seems a synonym for decades of misrule.

In the revolutionary fervor of February, Tahrir Square was a liberated enclave in an authoritarian country, an imagined community of sorts. Now it is Egypt itself, the distilled scene of all the fights and struggles, debates and fears that will decide its future.

“The revolution has informed people of the meaning of politics,” said Abdel-Aziz Moussa, a 25-year-old dentist. “We all know when we’re being played now.”

In that, he captured a microcosm of the square today that stands as perhaps the revolution’s most remarkable legacy. For so long, Arab leaders endured despite their relentless repression, colossal mismanagement or subservience to the West, because they managed to depoliticize their populations, often by force. But today, everyone in the square seemed to talk politics, with skepticism and critique.

“We changed, and they didn’t,” Ayman Abu Zeid, a 25-year-old doctor, said of the old government. He slept under tanks parked in Tahrir Square in February, blocking their way in case they tried to assault the protesters, and now he is in the square again. “Nobody is going to go back home,” he added. “No one.”

As a phrase, “the Arab spring” may never have captured what has unfolded this year. Libya is a civil war, Syria depressingly bloody. Bahrain was manipulated into a sectarian formula, and Yemen wrestled with the remarkable obstinacy of its leader. But it does suggest what the events meant for politics in nearly all those places, rejuvenating societies.

Source:  the new york times , 13th july 2011